Since Baldwin has been re-indicted for fatally shooting a cinematographer while filming a Western, Rust, I thought I'd reprise some observations about New Mexico law that I posed a year ago, when the issue was last in the news.
Under New Mexico law, see State v. Skippings (N.M. 2011),
[I]nvoluntary manslaughter is an unintentional killing that consists of an "unlawful killing of a human being without malice … committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection." We have interpreted this statutory scheme to encompass unintentional killings that result due to "1) the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony [that causes death]; 2) the commission of a lawful act that might produce death, in an unlawful manner; or 3) the commission of a lawful act that might produce death without due caution and circumspection."
